Rio Day 9 Olympic roundup — PHOTOS

RIO DE JANEIRO — Of course, Usain Bolt was the big news today, but there was a lot of other action in Rio.

LONE RUSSIAN TRACK ATHLETE CAN COMPETE

The lone Russian track and field athlete at the Olympics has won her appeal to compete at the Rio de Janeiro Games.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled early Monday morning that long jumper Darya Klishina is eligible to take part in Tuesday’s qualifying.

Klishina was the only one of 68 Russians cleared to participate in Rio by the IAAF, largely because she has been based outside Russia for the past three years.

But the sport’s governing body banned her from the Olympics last week after receiving what it said was new information.

CAS ruled that Klishina was eligible to compete because she fulfilled the requirements set by the IAAF.

The long jump final is scheduled for Wednesday.

MEN’S GYMNASTICS

Britain had never won an Olympic gold medal in gymnastics before Sunday.

In a span of about an hour, Max Whitlock gave the British two.

He already had won a bronze medal in men’s all-around at the Rio Games, then took the top spot in the floor exercise and pommel horse Sunday. He wasn’t able to properly celebrate after the floor because his two events started just more than 90 minutes apart.

“I had to go back to the training gym, refocus and get warmed up to do my job on pommel horse. … It was tough,” he said.

Whitlock finished fourth in the preliminary round but turned in a stellar routine on the floor to win with a 15.633 score. He outdid Brazilian crowd favorites Diego Hypolito and Arthur Mariano, who finished second and third.

But the Brits weren’t finished yet. Whitlock and Louis Smith repeated what they did at last year’s world championships by taking gold and silver, respectively, in the pommel horse. Whitlock finished at 15.966 and Smith at 15.833.

“I think Britain can safely say that we’re the best pommel horse workers in the world,” Smith said. “It’s just pride. It’s nice not to hear a Japanese or American anthem for once. It’s nice to hear the British anthem. So, yeah, it’s just incredible.”

WOMAN’S VOLLEYBALL

Never did Karch Kiraly expect the women’s volleyball Group B winner to go unblemished.

He probably had little idea captain Christa Dietzen would be the one to deliver during the latest impressive U.S. victory, either.

Dietzen made the final kill of the third set and provided a big lift off the bench, helping the top-ranked Americans (5-0) put themselves in prime position in this Olympic tournament. They responded from a one-set deficit to beat China 22-25, 25-17, 25-19, 25-19 on Sunday, and now will face Japan in the Rio de Janeiro Games quarterfinals Tuesday at Maracanazinho arena. China must face two-time defending champion Brazil (5-0), which swept Russia in Sunday’s late match and is yet to drop a set.

All along, Dietzen has accepted her role in Rio — limited or otherwise, like Sunday.

“I love whatever role I’m given, I think it’s great to come off the bench, to be a starter,” said the 29-year-old Dietzen, who has been working closely with team high-performance psychologist Michael Gervais during this trip. “It’s important for athletes to develop their ability to be their best from any position. When the team needs me, I’m ready to go in.”

Dietzen, nicknamed “Mom” by her teammates for all her care and used sparingly so far in Brazil, delivered. Her teammates couldn’t have been more proud to see it.

“This team has just so much trust in her as our captain, and with the experience that she has she’s a real stabilizing influence,” Kiraly said.

They joke she’s a “caged lion,” too.

WOMAN’S BEACH VOLLEYBALL

Kerri Walsh Jennings and April Ross are in the Olympic beach volleyball semifinals.

They’ll play defending world champions Agatha and Barbara on the Brazilians’ home sand to clinch a medal.

The Americans beat Australia 21-14, 21-16 on Sunday night to advance.

Walsh Jennings is going for her fourth straight Olympic gold medal, and Ross won silver in London in 2012.

Walsh turned 38 at midnight, and the U.S. fans serenaded her with “Happy Birthday” during the match.

SWIMMING

SINGAPORE (AP) — It was a photo taken with Michael Phelps that inspired Joseph Schooling to Olympic gold. So when he was mobbed by fans on his return to Singapore, he made sure he posed for a few.

Hundreds packed Singapore’s Changi Airport as the 21-year-old Schooling returned from Rio de Janeiro with an Olympic gold medal around his neck on Monday. He beat his idol in the 100-meter butterfly to deliver the first ever Olympic gold medal for the city-state of 5.54 million.

“Definitely the highlight of my life,” he told the crowd. “Thank you everyone for coming. This (gold) is not for me. This is for everyone. Thank you guys.”

Schooling, who attends the University of Texas, will spend four days celebrating in events in Singapore, including an open-top parade.

Sim Siew Png arrived at the airport seven hours early in the hopes of seeing his hero.

“I wanted to see the golden boy,” the 17-year-old Sim said as he clutched a pair of red swimming trunks that he hoped to get autographed. “Watching the moment live on television left me excited and happy. My family was screaming.”

Sim was recalling Saturday’s showdown in Rio where Schooling built a big lead and won in an Olympic record of 50.39 seconds. Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all time, South Africa’s Chad le Chlos and Laszlo Cseh of Hungary shared a three-way tie for silver.

Schooling’s father, Colin, did not travel to Rio but said he’d dreamed of the Singapore anthem being sung in the Olympic stadium.

“They did it this time,” he said. “That made my day.

FENCING

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — The golden drought is over for France in fencing.

One of the sport’s traditional powers won its first fencing gold medal since 2008, easily defeating Italy 45-31 in the men’s team epee final on Sunday at the Rio de Janiero Olympics.

Yannick Borel wrapped the match up for France with a quick touch of opponent Marco Fichera. Borel ripped off his mask and let out a scream to celebrate.

Eight years is a long time for France to go without an Olympic fencing gold.

“Just the happiest moment in my fencing life,” said Borel, a grin running from ear to ear. “You want to share this with your friends. They are screaming, you are screaming, too.”

Until Sunday, the French team overall managed just a silver and bronze in fencing in Rio. They were left off the podium entirely at the 2012 London Games.

The shutout ended with a resounding victory at Carioca Arena 3.

Hungary won the bronze after beating Ukraine 39-37.

In the final, Borel seemed to let out eight years of frustration for French fencers with a yell in the direction of vocal fans waving the French flag and his teammates.

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

Geno Auriemma could only smile after his U.S. women’s basketball team dominated another opponent.

It wasn’t so much the final score of the game, but the coach was really excited about the record number of assists the Americans dished out.

Tina Charles and Brittney Griner each scored 18 points and the U.S. had 40 assists on its 46 baskets to beat China 105-62 on Sunday. The Americans were unchallenged in group play, winning the five games by an average of 40.8 points, eclipsing the 100-point mark in four of them.

“When you have 40 assists, that means something,” Auriemma said beaming. “I talked to a team about that. There can’t be anything better in the game of basketball then when you get an assist. When you know that you made it possible for one of your teammates to get an easy basket, that’s basketball. Can’t play it any better than we played in the first half that was fun to watch.”

It was fun for those playing as well.

The U.S. is on a record-setting scoring pace averaging 104 points, just above the 102.4 mark set by the 1996 team that started the run of five gold medals and 46 consecutive Olympic wins.

Things get more serious as the single-elimination quarterfinals begin Tuesday with the U.S. (5-0) facing Japan. Whether the games get more challenging remains to be seen, but the heavily favored Americans need three more wins to capture their sixth consecutive gold medal.

In other games on Sunday, Serbia beat Senegal after securing the fourth seed with China’s loss. Spain beat Canada 73-60 to finish second in the group.

MEN’S BASKETBALL

Pool play is over for the Australia men’s basketball team after the Aussies defeated Venezuela 81-56 on Sunday night.

Australia (4-1) had already secured the No. 2 seed in the quarterfinals before the game and rested point guard Patty Mills, whose 20.5 points per game ranks second at the Rio Games. The U.S. holds the No. 1 seed in Group A.

The Olympic experience came to an end for Venezuela (1-4), which was playing in the team’s second games. It placed 11th at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona.

The Australians jumped out to a 16-2 lead in the first quarter and never trailed. Aussie Chris Goulding scored a game-high 22 and hit four 3-pointers. Australia shot 53 percent from the field while Venezuela connected on just 35 percent of its attempts. The Venezuelans made just seven field goals in the first and fourth quarters combined.

Anthony Perez led Venezuela with 12 points.

The Americans are three wins from gold, but there is still no reason to think it will be easy.

This is a bumpy road in Rio, but at least the Americans know Klay Thompson is finally along for the ride.

Thompson ended an Olympic-long slump with seven 3-pointers and 30 points, and the Americans needed almost all of them to hold off France 100-97 on Sunday.

The U.S. won its 50th straight tournament game, but the last three have been nothing like most of the previous 47.

“We’ve obviously had three close games in a row by our standards,” forward Kevin Durant said. “A win is a win. We’ve got to think about how we can be better but we can’t be satisfied.”

Winning by three for the second consecutive game, the U.S. improved to 5-0 and clinched first place in Group A. The Americans open quarterfinal play Wednesday, still the favorite but looking as beatable as ever under Mike Krzyzewski.

Their opponents couldn’t be determined until the completion of play Monday in the log-jammed Group B, where all six teams are still alive. The U.S. will play whichever team finishes fourth.

“This isn’t a tournament that we’re going to just dominate,” U.S. guard Paul George said. “There’s talent around this world and they’re showcasing it. For us, it’s just figuring out how we’re going to win. We’re having spurts of dominating, but we’re just not finding ways to put a full 40 minutes together.”

CYCLING

British cyclist Jason Kenny insists there was nothing awkward about the 24 hours leading to the individual sprint finals.

Even though he was sharing a room with his opponent, Callum Skinner.

“Just did the same thing we always do,” Kenny said. “We went to dinner, went to bed, woke up and had breakfast and came here.”

Kenny also insists there will be nothing awkward about heading back to their room together, even after he soundly beat Skinner on Sunday to win his second gold medal of the Rio Games.

“What we do on the track,” he said, “has no bearing with what happens at home.”

Besides, people should be accustomed to playing second fiddle to Kenny by now.

Not only did he defend the individual sprint title he won at the London Games, he also won his fifth Olympic gold medal. And when you combine the silver he won in the event at the Beijing Games, he now has six medals overall heading into Tuesday night’s keirin competition.

“I don’t know how they do it,” said Russia’s Denis Dmitriev, who at least managed to beat Kenny once in the semifinals of the best-of-three sprint event. “But, yeah, they’re best at the moment.”

Dmitriev swept pass Matt Glaetzer of Australia to earn the bronze medal.

In other events Sunday, former world road champion Mark Cavendish of Britain got started in the opening events of the six-discipline omnium, the decathlon of the track cycling program.

The winner of 30 stages in the Tour de France, Cavendish was the lone member of the British track cycling team to leave the 2008 Beijing Games without a medal. He also failed to medal at the 2012 London Games, when he was among the favorites in the road race.

BOXING

Robeisy Ramirez flummoxed his opponent for three Olympic rounds, landing precise punches and nimbly avoiding trouble. From bell to bell, the gold medalist showcased the same spectacular skills common to so many fighters from Cuba’s matchless boxing institution over the previous half-century.

Ramirez then waved and pumped his fist at the cheering crowd before holding a long, gracious conversation with reporters from all countries.

That second part is, well, revolutionary.

The new generation of Cuban Olympic boxers in the Rio de Janeiro ring shares much with its glorious predecessors, from superb athletic talent to peerless technique.

What they don’t share is the reticence, standoffishness and arrogance that characterized the dominant Cuban squads under famed coach Alcides Sagarra and his successors. The new stars also don’t seem to care about the longtime restrictions, both spoken and unspoken, on Cuban athletes’ interactions with the media, Olympic employees and even other competitors.

Just like its nation, Cuba’s famed boxing team is opening up to the world.

WRESTLING

Russia’s powerhouse wrestling program came through the recent doping scandal that enveloped many of the nation’s other athletes unscathed.

Roman Vlasov is hoping his team can rack up the medals in Rio and serve as a source of pride for the rest of its country.

Vlasov got the Russians off to a roaring start on Sunday, winning gold for the second Olympics in a row by taking first at 75 kilograms in the Greco-Roman event.

Vlasov beat Denmark’s Mark Madsen 5-1, his second straight win over the Dane in the world finals.

Vlasov’s victory will likely be the first of many in Rio for the Russian team, which typically dominates the Olympic wrestling tournament.

“Despite of the situation, the unfair decision of our athletes from the side of WADA, it’s very important to get the biggest quantity of medals that we can,” Vlasov said.

Ismael Borrero Molina won the gold at 59 kilograms, giving Cuba at least one wrestling title in each of the last seven Olympics.

Borrero Molina beat Japan’s Shinobu Ota 8-0 Sunday in the first title match of the Olympics.

The Cuban dominated the 22-year-old Ota, pulling ahead with a dramatic throw and turn move and clinching on match superiority for his second consecutive world title.

“I’m really glad to be an Olympic champion. There’s a lot of emotion. It’s so hard to explain,” Borrero said. “It went really fast but I was able to be a stronger athlete and come out on top.”

Vlasov nearly dropped his first match to South Korea’s Hyeonwoo Kim, who won gold at 66 kilograms during the London Olympics.

Kim’s coaches thought their wrestler had executed a late throw move. It could have won him the match, but the Koreans didn’t win their challenge.

Kim battled his way back through the loser’s bracket for a bronze, as did Saeid Morad Abdvali of Iran.

In the finals, Vlasov executed a four-point move in the first period — and Madsen didn’t score until the match was essentially finished.

Madsen has now finished second in the world five times. Still, by winning silver he became Denmark’s first Olympic medalist in wrestling since 1948.